Ceejay

@Phil Everything you mentioned above resonated. I don't understand how you are able to write the way you write. Possibly because you are in alignment. I don't have a dream board, haven't done any journaling, and haven't tried the emotional scale technique. I'm hoping to find all the adequate information I need regarding that in your website, and in this forum. I have started meditation and yoga, but I need to make some changes in my diet and stop eating much after nightfall. Interesting. So this kind of "conscious focusing" is related to the teachings of LOA? So your approach is emotional? I was able to release some deep ill-will and aversion and all that when I listened to "healing music" and such music penetrates into the deepest recesses and could work magic to open up one's heart. I have this foundation in meditation. What I think I need work with is deprogramming many of my limiting beliefs and notions. You meant breaking from the herd (of consensus reality folk)? Okay, but what about dreams that might be unrealistic? Like day dream stuff. Being in a Cast Away like situation with a girl friend and enjoying it rather.. such fantasies?

I have heard someone say that according to a study/research, it is deduced that the brain overvalues negative information 5 times over positive/neutral information, as it is needed for survival. If our ancestors were so enchanted and amused by the beauty of the sunset and fails to recognize brown patch behind the bushes as a possible bear, we wouldn't be here... is the argument. If this is true.. my behaviour could be motivated by this programming...

Yes, sleeping is great way to feel healed, relaxed and rejuvenated. Itchiness went away for the most part after waking up.

Yes. It morphed into something else. Perhaps it will come back later.

I have a tendency to read about crime, accident stories and so on. I often find myself reading about the horrors of war, holocaust, extremism, addiction stories, disabled people, etc. Some of the books I tend to wind up reading even though it is picked up randomly (like Flanagan's Narrow Road to the Deep North) is about the Burmese Death Railway, which is a story about war crimes. I no longer watch horror films, as I did saw many very disturbing films in my teens and it created PTSD later in my life after I started abusing marijuana, tobacco and alcohol. So I stay away from all visually/auditorily disturbing material. Is it bad for me to spend more time exploring the horrible side of life?

It is strangely comforting to know that this is not just the case with me and some other folk. People like Bentinho Massaro whom I used to follow in the past, often says things that makes me think that this possibility of "escaping everything and stopping experiencing" is somehow possible. It is the message that everyone would like to believe is true, but isn't.

I am eating a relatively good diet, but I still have major improvements to make like stop with the processed sugar, deep fried snacking in the evening and tea after 6 PM. Yesternight I drank tea (with sugar and milk) after 8 PM which might have contributed to my difficulty falling asleep. My body was in a wretched condition for years, with severe addiction to tobacco and alcohol. However I am staying sober for the entirety of this month, started doing 40 mins of daily sitting and 20 of vinyasa yoga (for 20+ days now without missing a day).

Thank you. Yes, I need to work on trusting that the universe is my friend and my enemy.

Failure is a social construct. Others (we care about) deem a particular situation as failure and sometimes, granted, we simply imagine that others do in a particular situation (and they might not be), but we assume it anyway... and when we find ourselves in the losing side, we imagine they are judging us harshly or internally laughing or something, or feeling sorry for us.

Isagi, maybe another time. 😌

Well, I talked about ego like if it is a real thing. And there isn't literally vast reserves of ego underneath me, now that I reflect on this question. Because I don't think it works like that. However during the intense emotion, the presence of the phantom is very palpable, even though it is theoretically illusory. Adya said the ego is shapeshifter.

Yes. But I was thinking what Magnus Carlsen said in an interview. He said there is no pleasure equal to the pleasure of knowing that you have trapped your opponent and they too realize that they fell into the trap and they are playing a losing game... The image that comes to mind is the description of a passage in PKD's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep where an android cuts of a spiders' leg one by one saying the legs are redundant. Chess too could be violent like that. But it is the ego that is hurt! Despite doing lots of ego deconstruction work and so on.. there are vast reserves of ego underneath me that I doubt whether it could actually be done away with. Yes, I agree with your point about the mistake of equating chess with intelligence. Others often do that in their naivete and that in turn affects me socially when I lose the game. But even then, I am not into it that much. If I was a hardcore player and I lost a game, maybe it hurts like needles.. But I am simply conjecturing..

I would like to simply stop experiencing life. I don't want to feel this body. It's very itchy, and can't get any sleep.. and overall unsatisfactory.. and there is no way to do self inquiry or meditation to stop experiencing anything.. i know psychedelics might help temporarily.. but i havent used it and does not intent to use them.. sometimes i wish these denial statements in scriptures like ribhu gita and all like... "nothing ever existed.." is actually true.. i feel that i exist in a body and i cant stop it until i jump off the building or something..

I am not much of a chess player and the kid was a keen player with lots of experience. I lost a chess game with him and others (incl. grownups) had witnessed this. No one humiliated me or anything. But immediately I felt constricted and tight, and sad. Is this normal? Does this happen with everyone? This is very little failure which does not mean anything. So what happens when something very hurtful, like intense public humiliation or something happened.. I get why some folk commit suicide after suffering such an episode, although it is over. It is because they realized that life could fuck them up really bad... and they are severely disillusioned about life being benign to them. Therefore, they no longer want to live in a reality where such fuckery could happen to them.

The Genesis of Now By Richard Doyle Happiness Beyond Thought, Dancing Beyond Thought and Evolving Beyond Thought by Gary Weber I Am and Transmission of the Flame by Jean Klien Vivekachudamani by Shankara I am That by Nisargadatta

Looking after a baby, I notice that I need to be very careful as there is lots of ways the kid can hurt itself. Like falling from the cot if left unmonitored. Like getting hit by some hard object while the baby is playing/exploring. Like poking the fingers into the electrical socket. Like swallowing something poisonous or choke-able. You got the point. This is not just about the baby. These sorts of dangers are everywhere for all of us. But I am especially sensitive to these aspects of life. This is a silly question which does not need to be answered because the answer is an obvious yes. But I'll ask it anyway - Is this how it is for everybody? Or are there people who does not think life is filled with potential objects/situations which could kill/injure us?

In that case, follow your calling. Maybe self-inquiry is not for you. Reading Jean Klien's work was/is helpful for me.

As a practitioner of self inquiry who does not employ mindfulness techniques (in a wilful manner), there is a point in what Phil said above. I don't make it a point to focus on a muscle that is tense and say anything. My focus during meditation is what the "I" is doing/thinking. Where is this "I"? Or simply giving the subtle "letting go" suggestion to all thoughts (word/image formations) appearing in awareness. The vipassana technique of focusing on a specific body part intentionally, and wilfully, has embedded in it the notion of a "doer"/"meditator"/"focus-er". Self inquiry or dissolving into thoughtlessness/wordlessness by simply dismissing all thought formations, does not retain a doer. If you are unfamiliar with self-inquiry, then there might be a temporary sense of an inquirer, but as practice proceeds, this notion of an inquirer is also deconstructed (which does not happen with vipassana).

I am mostly unfamiliar with this, or the languaging of chakras and kundalini and so on. But my suggestion would be to not get attached to these experiences and make a grand story out of it. Consider them like a dream, which has an expiry (when you wake up, you forget the dream).

Solipsism is just a belief. Maybe reality is something that is beyond all belief/thought structures. Maybe all belief/thought structures are precisely what obscures the real nature of reality.

Brutal love seems synonymous with the word 'torture'. So if you felt that, why do you ever want to repeat that experience? Nobody likes to get tortured. It's enough to put your hand in the stove once. Once you learnt it hurt thoroughly enough you might stop. Maybe you hope that it will hurt less next time, or as you keep on tripping. One of the greatest problem with psychedelics is that it makes sober meditation seems blase and boring. But no, you are hooked. It's like a child who is addicted cartoon refuses to do his math homework, and finds it extremely boring, not realising the deep cost of slacking in his studies would possibly wreak on his future career, intellect and emotional well-being. Just some analogies that came to mind.

Okay.

Imagine meditation like going to gym everyday. If you go to the gym everyday, your body will be much stronger and you can lift heavier and heavier weights. But, at not point in time, you are going to become a "Superman" who is able to lift a 10000 Kilogram object. "Emotional untouchability" sounds very much like "superman talk". All, I am saying is to set realistic goals. Realize that you are a human being and realize the limitations of being one.

In my trying to answer what is unconditional, I realized that I am struggling to what does "conditional" mean!

Indians in the US are typically rich, because you cannot go and stay in the US unless you are. It is very costly.